Lagos-Ibadan Railway for Commissioning in June

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

The Lagos-Ibadan railway project will be commissioned in June, the Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, has confirmed.

Speaking at the monthly inspection of the Lagos-Ibadan railway project on Monday, the Minister said he was impressed with the level of work by the contractors.

The railway project would have been commissioned earlier but it was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic last year.

Mr Amaechi, who was accompanied on the inspection tour by the Permanent Secretary, Dr Magdalene Ajani; the Director, Legal Services, Pius Oteh; the Chairman of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, Mr Ibrahim Alhassan Musa, amongst others, said, “There are one or two problems that we encountered and once that is solved, we intend to commission sometime in June.”

“The work we started in 2017 or 2018 has come to conclusion. All the 10 or 11 stations are almost ready. Some of the overpasses and underpasses are ready,” he added.

The Minister further informed that the second part of the contract, which is Ebute metta to the seaport, is almost completed and when ready, cargoes will be transported from the seaport by rail to Ibadan.

He disclosed that the model of Mobolaji Johnson Station (Ebute metta) is replicated in Itakpe, Abeokuta and Ibadan, though not as big, adding that same will be done along the Ibadan-Kano route and other parts of the country.

On the railway university, the Minister said the essence “is to train our young ones on how to manage the institution at the completion of the project.”

“Those that are in China will come back to the university and train others to manage the infrastructure,” Mr Amaechi further said.